


Finding Home

by esteoflorien



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/F, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 22:58:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2086344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteoflorien/pseuds/esteoflorien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kathryn & Alynna start their lives afresh - with a particular kind of journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PerilouslyClose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerilouslyClose/gifts).



Indiana is new to Alynna, Kathryn reminds herself as she watches her through the glass of the windshield. Alynna is fumbling for money at the register; she looks different, foreign. But of course she is, for she is one of the many who have never called Earth anything more than a vacation spot. Alynna is full of stories of summers spent in the officers’ seaside colony along the Russian coast, but her memories are of a town erected for and populated by vacationers from space. Her interactions with the Earth’s ordinary inhabitants are very few.  _She needs to learn,_ Kathryn reminds herself, watching as Alynna visibly attempts to soften her expression and temper her voice. 

 

Kathryn glances away when Alynna turns crisply on her heel and fairly marches out of the rest stop. The cashier leans back to watch her; Kathryn wonders what she’s thinking. 

 

Alynna raps on the window; the Admiral has returned. “I trust this will be satisfactory,” she says once Kathryn has lowered the glass, passing Kathryn’s coffee through. The coffee is mediocre at best, but it’s hot and black and Alynna has bought it for her. “Perfect,” she says, and Alynna smiles. 

 

Alynna settles herself in the passenger seat, buckling her seatbelt and unfolding the map, smoothing it out over her knees. “Carry on,” she says, and Kathryn laughs. 

 

They are taking a road trip; the old-fashioned kind, with a printed map and no communication devices. Just them, Kathryn’s little car, and the prairie. She’d suggested the trip on a whim, not really expecting Alynna to take her up on it. But Alynna had surprised her, and so they’d packed up the car with water and some snacks, and set off at sunrise. 

 

"It looks different," Alynna had said as they’d watched the misty fog slowly lift and the sun begin to sparkle on the fields. "Not bad or worse, but different."

 

That seems to be the most honest assessment of Alynna’s reaction to the grassy Indiana plains, and to Earth in general, and Kathryn can’t help but be disappointed. She hadn’t expected her to fall in love with Earth, but she’d allowed herself to hope for a bit more enthusiasm. 

 

She’d worried if Alynna would be able to see the beauty of it all. They’d taken long walks around the family farm at all times of day; they’d slept outside in the cool summer breeze; they’d gone to the lake. And yet Kathryn remembered very clearly her childhood dreams of watching the sunrise over the earth, and the feeling, when she’s been a Starfleet cadet, that nothing could possibly compare to watching daybreak from space. 

 

But she’s tired of space, now. She’s traveled farther than she’d ever thought she’d go, and spent mornings waking to stars she had never even imagined, and all she wants is to be home: Home,  in Indiana, to watch the sun rise overhead, to track the seasons, to mark time by the shifting of light to dark and back again. And her real fear is that Alynna will want to return to the stars. 

 

It had been Alynna’s idea to come home, however. They’d been in bed, lying in silence, when Alynna had kissed the top of her head and murmured, “You are unhappy, my dearest.”

 

Kathryn had demurred, but Alynna had not been dissuaded. “You have given me the dearest wish of my heart,” she’d continued. “I will be happy wherever you are happiest.” And while Kathryn could safely call anything home so long as Alynna was with her, she couldn’t deny that her heart sang when the ship landed in California.  

 

Alynna rests her hand over Kathryn’s, then quickly pulls it away. 

 

"I won’t disrupt anything, will I?" she asks, looking dubiously at the gear shift. 

 

"Of course not," she says, keeping her gaze on the road. Alynna’s hand settles comfortably over her own, and they sit in silence, watching the highway stretch before them.  

 

"I like it here," Alynna says, and Kathryn glances away from the interstate to look at her, this daughter of the stars, marveling at the cornfields glinting gold in the sun. 

 

Alynna’s face is inscrutable as ever, but her hair is gathered away from her face, hanging down her back in soft waves. She looks different, more relaxed, in her civilian dress. She’s picked up a bit of a tan, her newly golden skin contrasting beautifully with her silver hair. 

 

"That makes me very happy," Kathryn says after a moment.  

 

"Shouldn’t you be paying attention?" Alynna asks. 

 

"Of course, my love," she says, and Alynna laughs. It’s a welcome sound, and it gives Kathryn hope that Alynna might be happy here. 

 

Kathryn eases them past the toll and onto the expressway. Alynna strokes hand and turns her attention to the map. 

 

"Is it terribly far to Maine?" Alynna asks, after a little while. Indiana’s roads tend to look the same, acres and acres of farmland, and Kathryn has found that she’s missed this feeling of time passing without her notice as the fields roll by. Still, Alynna’s suggestion is enough to break the spell. 

 

Kathryn just about chokes on her coffee. “Maine has got to be something like 1500 miles away. More than, even.” She sighs. Those numbers are meaningless. “For perspective, we’re driving at about 60 miles per hour.”

 

"Oh," Alynna says, and she sounds a bit disappointed. 

 

"Why do you want to go to Maine?" 

 

"I want to see the ocean," Alynna says, her voice colored with mild excitement. 

 

"Then let’s go," Kathryn says, and she couldn’t care less that there are miles of Atlantic coastline much closer than Maine. "So long as you don’t mind the drive."

 

"I don’t," Alynna says with a smile. "Shall I navigate, Captain?"

 

Kathryn laughs. “Set our course, Admiral.”


End file.
